D&C 58: 47

Call upon the rich, the high and the low, and the poor to repent.

Each person is acting out their perception of God. Action results from belief about the best way to act under certain circumstances. God is at least the sum of all the best; each believes He would do the same in their shoes.

We feel joy when our “spirit and element [are] inseparably connected”(D&C 93: 33), even if our body is united with our spirit around mistaken principles (Rev. 3: 15-16). Paul was prepared for ardent Apostleship by his painstaking persecution of the Church (Acts 9: 1-6). President Taylor is quoted as saying “stay with your convictions, stay right with them”, to a junior clearly in the wrong (link).

We don’t need to worry about putting someone else’s thoughts or actions into “righteous” or “wicked” categories: part of that depends on their heart (Moro. 7: 6-8, Deut. 15: 10), and only the Lord can judge that.

The Lord wants people to be better, and everyone has room for growth. Encouraging people to live as they believe is calling on them to repent. Congruent living makes true principles clear and promotes falsehood’s abandonment (John 7: 17).

Hel. 5: 41

You must repent, and cry unto the voice,

even until ye shall have faith in Christ,…

Rather than faith followed by repentance, this is repentance followed by faith. Both will be rewarded by confirmation of faith and assurance of forgiveness because both are examples of testing the Lord by obedience.

and when ye shall do this,

When you do this, not “after you’ve experimented with this long enough to get it right”: sincere hearts instinctively know how to correctly repent.

the cloud of darkness shall be removed from overshadowing you.

Has it been removed from overshadowing me? Are there times when I crawl back under it, because it seems more familiar than venturing into repentance? What can I do to break my irresponsiveness?

• Make the cloud of darkness more real to me
• See more light in others: they didn’t see their own cloud of darkness until they saw the pillar of fire.

The Lord presents both symbols of His presence: the cloud and the pillar of fire (Ex. 13: 21-22). The Lord is in the darkness as assuredly as He is in the light, and is always leading us toward the Promised Land.

Acts 2: 8, 13

And how hear we every man in our own tongue?

Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

There is meaning all around; if I am seeking, I will find it: “all things denote there is a God”(Alma 30: 44) and if I will listen to understand, I will “let the eternal creations declare his name forever and ever.”(D&C 128: 23) Otherwise it may seem as meaningless as drunken mumbling.

Heavenly Father teaches me according to my own language, according to my own context. Doctrines may take on different connotations and connections based on the person being taught: I learn by accepting these differences and amalgamating them. Until I understand how they fit together, I will leave space for every understanding.

Matt. 13: 45-46

 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man,

seeking goodly pearls:

 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price,

went and sold all that he had,

and bought it.

One way to read this parable is that we are seeking the truth, that pearl. Another way to say that it is Christ who “sought me when a stranger”, and finding great worth in us (D&C 18: 10), has given Himself for us (Gal. 2: 20). God and Christ go to find us. We are the goodly pearls and He and His Son have sold all that they have (paid the ultimate price) to purchase or redeem us. Once purchased, we are not our own, but belong to our Lord and should serve Him, and be used according to His wisdom.

David Daniels

John 16: 2, 4

The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you

will think that he doeth God service….

These things have I told you,

that when the time shall come,

ye may remember that I told you of them. 

It’s amazing to me to think how much God’s foreknowledge is intended to help us bear all of our afflictions with peace. Here, He says that even under the threat of murder, our afflictions are not a surprise to Him; they were not outside of His perfect planning. Therefore, we should face our trials with courage, knowing that the Lord has given them specifically to us for our exaltation.

Matt. 2: 13-15

The angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, 

saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother,

and flee into Egypt,

and be thou there until I bring thee word…

When he arose,

he took the young child and his mother by night,

and departed into Egypt:…

that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord 

by the prophet,

saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

As a safe-haven for the radical, Egypt was an intervening Savior, holding Israel back from its self-righteous desire to squash non-conformists. That Israel, who wanted to see itself as ever independent from heathen nations, would prove dependent on their ancestral captors for the safety of the Messiah teaches the interdependence of all nations and religions in God’s plan as it unfolds worldwide, not merely in isolated Israel. How thankful we should be for Egypt's role in bringing Salvation to the world!

How much more peaceful would our missionary work be if we understood this basic statement: "Thy faith hath made thee whole". It is not my faith, nor your belief in my faith, nor your changing your faith to fit my model, that heals. It is your faith that makes you whole.

Luke 18: 9

  9 And he spake this parable unto certain

which trusted in themselves that they were righteous,

and despised others:

The better way is to trust in God that through Jesus you will be made righteous, recognizing your daily fallibility, and to look past sins to love the goodness in others, knowing that Christ can also make them whole. But how empowering to know that Christ specifically looked to teach the people like me with this fault! He wants us to learn and to become better.

When you look at other people, exercise your faith that Christ can make them Whole. Then ponder what He would have told them about their healing power, refusing to take credit Himself: “Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

Luke 5: 30

Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?

Why don’t I eat with publicans and sinners? There is one Exemplar, and this is what He did.

For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye?( Luke 6: 32)

be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.( Luke 6: 35)

Luke 5: 5-7

…Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.

… And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.

When I am exhausted from toiling all night, and yet have nothing to show for it, am I willing to let the Lord direct me? He wants to teach. He wants me to know that He will make my efforts useful.

Hel. 5: 29

  29 And it came to pass that there came a voice

as if it were above the cloud of darkness, saying:

Repent ye, repent ye, and seek no more to destroy my servants whom I have sent unto you to declare good tidings. •  •  •

I want to think that I cannot tell who they are whom the Lord is referring to as His servants. They could be anyone. The Lord works in mysterious ways and calls mysteriously imperfect people to do his perfect will. Recieve the glad tidings from every person that the Lord has sent into this world!

Alma 46: 15

15 And those who did belong to the church were faithful;

yea, all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them, gladly,

the name of Christ, or Christians as they were called,

because of their belief in Christ who should come. •  •  •

There is admiration to the point of imitation: but this is the most complete imitation. This is asking to be called by His name, to respond to His responsibilities, knowing that He will be called to do many difficult yet wonderful things. This is offering your life, as He offered His, that the Spirit may guide your full purpose “to preach the gospel to the poor; [] to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4: 18). 

Isa. 58: 6-11

  6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

  7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

  8 ¶ Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.

  9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

  10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:

  11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

Is this the fast that I have chosen? Or is my fast more of an individually isolated event. What can I do to make it more of a social event, as is presented here? 

God hears and answers every sincere prayer. We can think of His communications to us (those mental, yet heart-felt nudges) as prayers. It should be our goal, in our efforts to do to Him as we would have Him do to us, to hear and answer each of His sincere prayers.

Alma 37: 40

40 And it did work for them according to their faith in God;

therefore, if they had faith to believe

that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go,

behold, it was done;

therefore they had this miracle,

and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God,

day by day.

You can hear Nephi saying “See those little spindles? Do you believe that the Lord has the power to move such a little thing? Do you believe that He will move them so that we stay in the right path?”

Sometimes we try to take a fathom of our faith by asking ourselves whether we believe that the Lord could move a mountain, if He wanted to. This is a task of brute force, without much meaning: we don’t know why He would want to move a mountain.

This example is opposite: the Lord is moving delicate spindles. It is a small action full of meaning. Nephi is confirmed in the Lord’s love and tender mercies as he watches the spindles and recognizes that he and his family were led through “the more fertile parts of the wilderness.”(1 Ne. 16: 16)

The delicacy of the spindles creates a greater test of faith. A mountain moving might not leave room for doubt, but if the spindles looked off course, it would be easy to think that they had gotten stuck in the wrong place, that the reader was holding it the wrong way, or that it had gotten worn out, and stopped working. Especially if it looked like the spindles never changed course: e.g.“we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth.”(1 Ne. 17: 1)

“It is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass, which would point unto them a straight course to the promised land.”(Alma 37: 44) In what ways is our trial of faith by the word of Christ similar to the trial of faith by spindles?

Commandments are delicate: it is easy to imagine different meanings of what the Lord meant, and easy to convince ourselves that one of our interpretations is more correct than the one that the Lord is whispering in our ears (i.e. the spindles are broken).

Commandments are mostly unchanging: sometimes we are disappointed that the Lord doesn’t see fit to void one of His commandments in our special case scenario. Believing in the Lord’s delicate guidance, we might expect Him to lead us in more extreme diversions from a long-before-set-out, universally uniform path. But it is through minute variations from this path that we each find our individuality confirmed and mercies flow.

Alma 37: 33
33 Preach unto them repentance,
and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ;
teach them to humble themselves and to be meek and lowly in heart;
teach them to withstand every temptation of the devil,
with their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. • • •

Humility draws the soul upward and outward, like clay on a potter’s wheel, believing that there is an external source of goodness (God) that is above your own. This is soul-expanding, making your soul a receptacle for more of Heavenly Father’s blessings and love, a clean “inward vessel”(Luke 11: 39).